An Absent Conscience
by Val'drae
Summary: It takes a pretty drastic set of circumstances for Cuddy to give up on House, and even more so for House to realize how much that means to him.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: **They're not mine, I'm just messing around with their lives before I return them to Paramount.**  
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**Cuddy**

"Do you think that insulting the patient is going to make me say yes?"

"The patient is an idiot…"

"If you don't let me get back to work soon, I'll get that inscribed on your tombstone. Or would you prefer 'everybody lies'?"

"The woman is a psychotic."

"I believe the word you're looking for is psychic." I interrupted yet again.

"No, she _thinks_ she is a psychic, which by definition makes her a psychotic." House leaned over my desk and placed his hands pointedly over the paper I had been trying to read. Now I had no choice but to give him my full attention, which unfortunately meant that I had an unobstructed view of the downward angle of his gaze. "If I ever want to contact my dead grandfather I'll ask for her help. By that logic it's kind of rude of her not to trust my medical opinion isn't it?"

"Your opinion has nothing to do with medicine," I informed him, refusing to give him the satisfaction of adjusting my jacket, "you just can't stand…"

"Doing nothing is doctor-assisted-suicide!" He yelled, frustration finally getting the better of him. More quietly, but certainly no more calmly, he added "Isn't there something in the rule book against that? I'd have to go and look back through my first year notes to double check."

"I'm not even going to bring up all the times you've ignored that ethical code…"

"You just did." He grumbled, sitting back down and resting his chin on his cane.

I continued to speak, ignoring him; it was easier to project my thoughts when he wasn't staring down my blouse. "You wouldn't be here if you didn't realize that it's her decision and not yours, but now I want you to remember that it's not my decision either. She doesn't want the surgery."

I picked up my pen once more and resumed my examination of the letter on my desk, signifying the end of the conversation. A moment later I heard the irregular shuffle of movement towards the door, then the brush of glass against carpet, then nothing.

I tapped my pen on the page, waiting for the door to swing off its hinges and a certain cranky cripple to barge back in and start making demands.

Nothing.

I went back to the first paragraph and skimmed it, trying to re-focus my attention on the letter. Why was it that I could pay much closer attention to something like this when House was quite literally breathing down my neck? He would be outside my office, watching through the glass and waiting for the tension to rise before he made his grand entrance. Well I refused to give him that satisfaction; I dragged my eyes from one word to the next.

Nothing.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore. I glared up through the glass wall of my office to the spot where I was sure he would be standing: nothing.

I frowned even more, annoyed with myself; House didn't even need to be anywhere near me to make me nervous and agitated. If I was a patient I'd diagnose myself with paranoia. Actually that isn't entirely true; if anybody besides House made me feel this way I'd waste no time in signing myself into the nearest psych ward, but as it was I knew that he wasn't giving up, just re-directing his energy. This, as far as I was concerned, provided plenty of justification for my nervousness.

I sighed and rolled my shoulders; whatever it was, I was sure that I would hear about it soon enough, and in the meantime I had better things to do than follow one of my doctors around like an overwhelmed babysitter.

,',

I was acutely aware of an extra bounce to my step and an extra sharp click to the sound my heels made as I marched out of the board room, but I was in too good of a mood to worry about my professional image. I was pretty sure nobody but myself, and a hyper-observant diagnostician, would notice anyway.

_And how sad is it_, I thought with mild amusement, _that all it takes to put me in a good mood is to discuss everything on my agenda ten minutes ahead of schedule. _ It wasn't an exhilarating rush like the kind that came from a particularly intense confrontation with House, but rather a strange sort of confident satisfaction; I might even take my midmorning break, which had always been a part of my timesheet but never once in fifteen years did it make its way into my schedule, plus that extra ten minutes of course.

Rather than taking the direct route back to the first floor, I skirted around to the back stairwells and detoured through the maternity ward. It was hard to imagine myself screaming in pain as it took three dozen hours to push a seven pound infant through a very small, and very sensitive, part of my anatomy. Then of course there was the pregnancy itself; nausea, back pain, inability to sleep or sit down, small bladder space, spotted bleeding, swollen feet, hormones… so why did I want this so much? I couldn't fool myself into thinking that it was all about holding a precious little life in my arms, knowing it was completely dependent on me, although that thought did hold a certain allure. In truth my desire to have a baby was something I wanted to prove I could do. I had already excelled as a student, a doctor, a boss and a dean, but here I was being presented with a huge part of life that I had never experienced. I wanted the challenge of being thrust into a new situation, the thrill of learning something new, the satisfaction of knowing I could handle two full time jobs simultaneously.

I slowed my pace as I neared the viewing room. Two men were conversing in low tones as they peered in through the glass at the new babies kicking awkwardly in their hospital brand cradles. What a beautiful picture, no wonder it was so popular in movies. What didn't make it onto the screen of course is the shot of the new mother, shifting uncomfortably in the narrow hospital bed, tired and groggy from her drugged up ordeal yet unable to get comfortable for fear of tearing her stitches. What a beautiful start to life; _at least,_ I thought to myself, _I hold no illusions as to what I am getting myself into._ I allowed my hand to brush against my stomach, disguising the action as part of my movement as I breezed past the rows of tiny incubated beds. My caution was probably unnecessary as nobody was watching me, but I enjoyed the stealth anyway; nobody knew my secret and I was determined that nobody would know until I was good and ready to tell them.

"Doctor Cuddy!" I groaned and glanced at the hall clock as I reached the first floor; one minute. One minute until the scheduled break which I was determined to enjoy and here I was being confronted with a pressing hospital issue in the form of an agitated Nurse Brenda waving a chart at me from down the hall. Ignoring the temptation to take an example from House and duck into a nearby room to hide, I plastered a professional look of attentive indifference on my face and stared her down as we approached each other. Any staff member with an ounce of sense would take the hint and press on only if the matter was _extremely_ urgent. Brenda must have thought that the balance of the universe would be upset if I didn't attend to this situation NOW… either that or she really was immune to the best glares of the hospital's two most intimidating doctors.

"Ms. Frost died this morning, Dr. Cuddy. Her brother is making a fuss down in the morgue, he's threatening to sue." I had expected the first part; Crystal Frost was the most recent patient of the Diagnostic Department; House's department. It was regarding this patient that the cranky doctor had come to my office about yesterday afternoon. House had no idea what was causing the large tumour in the woman's brain, but he did find out that she had two options; die or… well, die. House wanted her to get brain surgery to remove the tumour, which was extremely risky and would kill her at the least; at the most it would almost certainly leave her severely brain damaged or catatonic. My last update on the situation was that she was still refusing the surgery, the reason for my encounter yesterday with a very annoyed Dr. House.

My good mood long forgotten, I started down another floor to the morgue. Ms. Frost's brother knew very well that his sister was dying; it was understandable that he was upset but I failed to see why it was my responsibility to coddle every grieving relative that came through the hospital doors.

My tone of voice implied all of this when I responded to his unintelligible abuse, even if I hid it behind soothing words of condolence. "Mr Frost, I sympathize with your grief but you must remember that we are a hospital and not a house of miracles."

"I know it's a hospital!" he snapped back, "It was Crystal who thought she'd be cured by the elemental spirits, not me."

I immediately felt the warning flags go up in my mind; this was more than a simple case of shock that I was dealing with. "I am sorry for your loss, but there was nothing more we could have done for your sister."

"If there was nothing more that could have been done, then why did you have to go and do what you did!" He demanded, his voice echoing throughout the eerily silent room. "Why couldn't you let her die in peace?"

The warning flags in my mind were now accompanied by loud alarm bells. This was a deceased patient of House's… but surely he wouldn't…not without informed consent. With a deep sense of foreboding, I looked over and down to where Ms. Frost lay; her cold form positioned on an even colder slab. Her head had been partially shaved and there was an angry, curved red gash which had yet to be stitched up. "She had the surgery." I breathed, my quiet voice carrying through the sterile space. I hadn't meant to say anything; it was obvious that she'd had the surgery, and had died in the midst of it. As a rule I tried to avoid the appearance of being caught off guard by anything; it was never good for the appearance of the hospital for one doctor to question another in the earshot of a client.

"Damn right she had the surgery. Right after she said she didn't want to. What's your hospital's policy on that?"

Despite the immobility of my mouth, my mind was whirling sixty miles per hour in second gear. House would never perform surgery without some form of legal consent… would he? Could he if he wanted to? Granted he had been known to ignore every other ethical guideline at his convenience, but this had always been the one rule he would never cross. So then what could have happened? I would have known immediately if he had appealed to the courts, assuming he could find a way to do so without my cooperation, and even if he had managed to talk the patient into signing a form, without her brother's knowledge, I certainly would have gotten the memo.

And anyway, House had to have had some sort of paper trail around this incident; there wasn't a surgeon in this country who would perform brain surgery on such short notice without a thorough examination of the particulars. I would have to find him and figure out what had happened before I could even begin to console the poor woman's grieving brother. "I…I'm sorry, but if you're serious about suing, then I really shouldn't be speaking to you without consulting my lawyers." I finally stammered out pathetically and practically fled the room. I would have to get the full story out of Dr. House before I could deal with the situation any further.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Hello all, and thanks to the numerous generous people who reviewed (insert eye roll here). I'm still getting used to the limits in formatting of so bear with me. Sorry the last chapter was a bit confusing... there's supposed to be a break of sorts in there somewhere, I'm assuming that all of you intelligent and gifted individuals can figure that out.**

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**House**

My three trained minions were all sitting around the table in my outer office, their body language displaying three different forms of the same "I'm bored, torment me" invitation. They were killing time in various unproductive ways while they waited for something to come and make their lives interesting; so was I, although I had the advantage. They were twiddling their thumbs hoping for a new case, while I was waiting for entertainment of another form. In fact, I could hear it working its way down the hall towards my office in the form of the rhythmic _click click_ of heeled shoes assaulting a polished floor.

I twirled my cane and enjoyed the feeling of anticipation as the sound drew closer; I could tell by the sheer urgency of the rhythm that I was in for an especially fun time. Finally, when I deemed the timing right, I snatched the crossword puzzle that Chase was trying to fill out. "Five down, female embodiment of vengeance and punishment, ends in a 'Y'"

The door to my office swung open and Doctor-Cuddy-Boss-Lady herself marched into the room, a patient chart tucked under one arm. I barely managed to contain my glee as three sets of surprised eyes focused on her; I do enjoy my little mind games.

"Only four letters, must be 'Fury.' Ah hello, Dr Cuddy, have you brought me a new case?" I tossed the crossword back on the table and took a minute to study my boss, who was looking with barely concealed confusion at my three employees, who had reddened and averted their gazes.

"I already solved five down." Chase murmured to himself.

After only a brief moment of hesitation, Cuddy turned her glare back to me and advanced like a lioness fixing on her pray. She really is a joy to watch when she is acting all professional and uptight. "You have three files on your desk, choose one of them."

"Oh is that what those were for, I've been using them to make ramps for my tennis ball." I said carelessly. I do have to admit that it is a tiny bit intimidating to have four intelligent and accomplished people turning to glare lasers through my head, though I rather enjoyed the attention.

"We've been sitting here waiting for a case and you have three of them?" Cameron demanded predictably.

"Relax, will you? If you want to make up for lost time you can order a fasting CBC for the blue folder, swab for rubella on the yellow, and refer mauve to oncology."

To do her credit, Cuddy managed to wait until my sheep had herded into my inner office before pointing out "But they're all blue."

From the appearance of things, the ducklings had figured that out as well; they scowled at me through the window as they filed out into the hallway. "If they can't figure it out on their own, then they didn't deserve to be in my employment. To whom do I owe the pleasure for this visit?" I raised an eyebrow suggestively at her.

Cuddy opened the chart she was carrying and placed it in front of me; it belonged to Geode, or whatever her name was, the patient who had been mine up until her unfortunate demise sometime this morning. I was impressed that Cuddy had attended to the chart so soon, although it was her job to deal with such things; rather, I was more surprised that it had made its way into her sticky hands so soon after I had indiscernibly misplaced it under Coma-Guy's pillow. "I hear your patient died, I'm sorry."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Death is always a tragedy. Thankfully for me, this death is somebody else's tragedy."

"How did she die?"

"Apparently she had some weird growth in her brain." I shook my head as if this were a new and strange concept. Cuddy didn't usually take this long to get to the point and I was mildly annoyed at this change in behaviour of an otherwise fun person to converse with.

"House." She sat down across from me and gave me an earnest and sympathetic look, obviously forgetting whom she was talking to. Uh oh, any conversation that starts off with Cuddy treating me like a ten year old going through chemotherapy is bound to end in tragedy. "How did you get the surgery approved?"

"I find that most hospitals generally like to help people."

"_House._" She said again, her voice lower and rather threatening; rather like how I'd always imagined she would sound after handcuffing some poor powerless lover to the bedpost.

I considered playing innocent for a while longer, but I felt that it would be a tragedy not to allow the world to learn from my genius. "I don't know what you're talking about, but on a completely unrelated topic, let me tell you a fictional story."

She made an annoyed, animalistic grunt in the back of her throat, which I took to be infuriated boss language, translating into English as "of course, you sexy beast. My life would not be complete without hearing how you brilliantly manipulated the system which I thought I had so much control over."

"Let's pretend, in a hospital far away from here, that the young patient who was admitted was unfortunate enough to be born to neo-hippies who said to each other upon their daughter's birth, _'let's give her a name that makes her sound like the stuff that causes car accidents on the coldest days of the year.'_ Now, this unfortunate young woman was destined to grow up to believe that science and medicine were invented as part of a governmental conspiracy, and so she refused to sign for a biopsy or a cat scan or an autopsy."

"Autopsy?" Cuddy repeated, narrowing her eyes.

Oops, I hadn't meant to include that part of the fable, I hastily continued on with my narrative. "Now, if this woman were, hypothetically speaking of course, on her last legs and somehow wandered in a state of confusion to a place in front of the emergency doors without any ID or annoying DNR notices, then it is of course the hospital's duty to do everything they can to help her."

"I can't believe you!" Cuddy looked like she had a million things to say and only four words to say it with. I had hoped for exasperation and annoyance, but she seriously looked peeved.

"Not the kind of story you'd read to your kids at bedtime eh? That's okay, I have more. Ever hear the one about the…"

"This was never about the welfare of the patient." She interrupted, which was just as well because I didn't have anything overly clever to say. "You couldn't care less if she had the surgery or not. You _do_ care if she dies and you can't do an autopsy to get the answers you crave."

"That would be rather unprofessional of me." I told her while un-professionally folding the patient's Complete Blood Count sheet into a pirate hat.

"Will you _stop?_ This is a serious matter!" She snapped, smacking my fiddling hands and effectively crumpling the unfortunate piece of paper against the table top. I sighed mournfully as if she had just attacked a kitten and attempted to smooth the creases out of the poor abused paper.

"Doesn't it bother you at all?" She continued, leaning forward and attempting to catch my eye. I was having none of it; I continued to study the table top. "The patient died…"

"She would still be dead if I didn't do anything." I pointed out, annoyed that I had to explain such a simple concept to an ordinarily intelligent individual. "And she might not have died with the surgery. It's a simple case of mathematics, I was doing my job."

"She chose the definite option over the possibility of living the rest of her life with the mental capacity of an infant. The only thing you did was take away the one shred of power she still had!" Cuddy was seriously angry now, which would ordinarily have caused me great amusement, but right now she was angry at _me,_ and felt it was her duty to lecture me; which of course meant that the conversation had lost any appeal to me.

"She never had control over her death, death had control over her." I snapped. "And besides, it makes no difference to her now does it?"

By the expression on Cuddy's face, I had to guess that I just said the wrong thing. Not that I had a reputation for saying the _right_ thing, but I like to think that I was good at making people agree with my side of the argument, at the very least. "Do you know why there are laws against this kind of thing?" She asked with a touch of sorrow and a slight bit more than a touch, more like a slap really, of anger. "It's for the benefit of those people who don't have enough common decency to realize that they serve a practical purpose."

"Technically, I haven't broken any rules." I pointed out, sorrowed by the thought that she was unable to see the brilliance of my scheme.

"You really don't care, do you?" She wasn't really asking, which annoyed me to no end. Why was it so hard for people to be brutally honest when they were calling me an arrogant and selfish masochist? "You don't care that Crystal's death went against everything she had ever believed in. You don't care that she spent her last hours separated from her family, you don't care that her brother nearly worked himself into a brain aneurism when she went missing, only to find her three hours later in the morgue. It's all the same to you as long as _you_ can satisfy _your _twisted curiosity."

"Are you asserting the obvious for your benefit or mine?"

"You know what House? If you don't care, then neither do I."

I got the feeling that she really _did_ care, especially considering she nearly sent my poor door shattering into the opposite side of the hallway on her way out of the room. She must have meant that if I didn't care about the patient, then she wouldn't care about me, but why couldn't she just say as much?

I downed a couple of pills as I painfully got to my feet and limped towards the maltreated door. This was a matter that could only be properly contemplated over Wilson's lunch.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** Thanks to House Addiction for making me feel loved. As for the rest of you, I'm going to assume that at least a few people out of the thousands that have viewed would like me to continue with the story.

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**House**

"She's got a nervous breakdown looming over her head like the plague, and we all know how dangerous that can be."

"It can't have anything to do with how much you provoke her could it?" Wilson glared at my hand as I snatched a handful of fries off his plate.

"That's exactly my point!" I said, my enthusiasm making me forget that I had a mouthful of macerated trans-fats. "She gets wound up like a clockwork mouse over the tiniest little things, well sooner or later that mouse has to break, and then I'm left with a useless pile of springs and sharp, tetanus inducing objects."

"I don't care how stressed she is, Cuddy cannot give you tetanus."

"I was using it as a metaphor for genital herpes."

I love watching Wilson's internal conflict; he jerked his head back slightly and blinked hard, giving a tiny cough. After several seconds of blinking stupidly and playing around with the muscles in his forehead, he seemed to decide that my comment wasn't worth pursuing. He couldn't fool me though; I knew that he was just as curious about our boss's vaginal extremities as the next guy.

"Look, I saw Cuddy this morning. She seemed fine, strong and healthy and in control."

"'In control?' What's that supposed to mean? Who was she dominating?"

Wilson sighed and rolled his eyes, the way he always did to tell the world that he believed the conversation to be a waste of his time. "We were in a board meeting. She was in control of the situation and of herself, as in _no_ nervous breakdown."

"She was dominating a hospital board meeting, doesn't that strike you as being nervous and uptight?"

"She's doing her job, the same as she always does. Why should this only now be a symptom of mental instability?"

"Did she seem tired or lethargic at all?" I pressed, determined to find something more to defend my theory.

"Quite the opposite…"

"Ah-hah, I knew it!" I grinned triumphantly. "She's losing weight too, have you noticed?"

"What, no, is she?"

"She's got two bottles of vitamins on her desk, which means she's not eating right."

"There is absolutely _no_ logic behind that reasoning at all."

"Yeah-huh." I said in the dialect of an elementary school playground. "She is too losing weight, just look at her face and neck."

"Now I know you're lying, you never pay attention to her face." Wilson pointed out, not entirely unjustly, but he of all people should know that I notice _everything_, even when my gaze is focused on a pair of biological balloons.

"_And_ she's been wearing more provocative clothes than usual…"

"No she has not."

I continued on as if I didn't hear the rude interruption. "A push up bra with the same low cut blazer, her subconscious is crying out for attention."

"I wondered when you'd get around to mentioning her chest. And anyway, if she was losing weight then that would be the first place it would show, and since you haven't mentioned anything…" Wilson seemed to have forgotten about his unspoken vow never to indulge me when I started talking about Cuddy's breasts, so of course I jumped at the opportunity presented to me.

"Not all women lose weight from their squeezables, take Cuddy for example…" I guess I must have been raising the volume in my voice because quite a few people dining at the nearby tables were taking notice. Wilson, always the gentleman, leaned forward to defend the fair lady's honour.

"_Doctor_ Cuddy has a list of achievements longer than yours; you might give her the dignity of admitting that her existence has value other than for you to speculate about her sexuality."

"Aww, now don't be a party pooper." I grabbed Wilson's arm when he tried to leave the table. "Fine, but let me ask you this. Do you remember the last time she took a sick day off?" I took Wilson's silence to affirm the negative. "What did I tell you, she's a nervous breakdown in the making. I bet you a meal at Berty's Diner that she wouldn't even take the day off if she had the flu."

He sighed impatiently. "House, if you're really that concerned about her stress level, there is a very simple way for you to help her cope. And I would only be insulting your intelligence if I were to assume you don't know what that is. I need to get back to work."

I sat back in my chair and schlurped noisily on my straw as he and the rest of the hospital staff in the room scurried off to their monotonous little existences. I had much to think about, chief among them being the fact that Wilson had neglected to decline my challenge to a bet; which technically meant that he had accepted it, and I do enjoy the beef dip at Berty's Diner. The only trouble was waiting; like every other person who works in a hospital, Cuddy would have gotten her flu shot every year. By the time the circumstances were right to cash in on our bet, Wilson would have forgotten all about it.

I was suddenly aware of the comforting scratch in my throat as a couple tiny pills roughly worked their way down in the first stage of absorption into my system. I looked down at the bottle of vicodin secured protectively in my grip, how odd it was that I didn't even remember fishing it out of my pocket, so engrained was the habit for me. Both my thoughts and my focus on the bottle intensified as my mind started to thread together the first inklings of an idea. I twiddled my hands slightly and the little bundle responded, musically assuring me that my pain could remain carefully repressed through until the end of the day.

With a definite plan of action I jumped to my feet—or as close to fulfilling that expression as my crippled body would allow. A more accurate thing to say was that I shifted to my foot, pocketing the pill bottle and pivoting to grab my cane in one fluid motion so I could hobble out of the cafeteria and head in the general direction of the hospital pharmacy.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Thanks to House Addiction for giving me an unbiased outside opinion on the story and letting me know what needs clarification; the first part of this chapter is for you. And don't get too depressed by it, I am a firm believer in lessons learned and optomistic endings.**

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**Cuddy**

I could tell that Wilson wanted to speak to me. Not Dr. J. Wilson, head of my Oncology Department; he would submit a request for my approval and come by to see me during my designated _'I have paperwork but please feel free to barge into my office and disrupt my schedule at your convenience'_ hour. No, this was James Wilson; the cute, slightly awkward best friend to Greg House with a misleading innocence to his face. If he was hunting me down after the Children's Ward basketball match, rather than after a board meeting, then he must have been talking to House, and I was reasonably confident I could guess the subject of their conversation.

"Are you feeling okay?"

I frowned, whatever I was expecting, that wasn't it. "Of course, why?"

"House has been acting…weird."

I raised a graceful eyebrow, motioning for him to walk with me towards my office. "Weird for him or weird for any other mentally developed human being?"

"He's concerned about you."

"That doesn't sound like him."

"He's obsessing…"

"That does."

"Are the two really so different?"

"You know him better than I do." I suddenly remembered why I was so angry at House.

Wilson matched my no-nonsense stride and motioned drastically with his hands, I was relatively certain that he was able to clarify his ideas more with his hands than with his words. "He's confused, he's insecure, he…he's victimizing himself and looking for ways to shift the blame"

"He has no concept of blame." I protested.

"He does, it's just misguided, un-channelled. He doesn't know how to deal with his emotions or anybody else's."

"Let me tell you something." We had reached the sanctuary of my office so I had no problems turning to confront Wilson with an all out assault. "I thought I knew him about as well as anybody, and two days ago I would have agreed completely with what you're saying. But I've realized that I can't keep working under the assumption that he understands the concept of cause and effect, that he knows or actually cares what his responsibilities are. I can't keep accepting excuses for him, and making up some of my own."

Wilson took a moment to recover himself, clearly caught off guard by the emotion behind my rant. "So what are you going to do, fire him?"

I paused, halted by my automatic reluctance to take such drastic action, but my heart hardened the more I thought about it. I had always stated my reasoning for keeping Dr. House on my payroll as being that of his acclaimed reputation, but long ago I realized how inaccurate that really was. House's 'reputation' brought the hospital a lot of publicity that did us more harm than good; lawsuits, offended donors, media stories, and old-fashioned word of mouth. I really had nothing to base my assumption that he actually understood ideas of compassion and responsibility on except my own assumptions and feelings. Could that be reason enough to keep him in a position of trust and authority over other human beings? The more I pondered the question, the more strongly I realized that no, there was no logical way I could justify that.

"Yes." I said at last, and had to swallow a few times as if the word had sponged all the moisture out of my mouth. "As a doctor he is given a lot of power; power over people when they are at their most vulnerable, both mentally and physically, and power over people's lives. I cannot have him in that position unless I know with absolute certainty that he understands what that responsibility entails."

Wilson was shocked by my statement, I didn't need to see it on his face, I knew that he was; so was I. "You can't be serious. I...I mean you're angry, it's understandable. You trusted him and you feel he betrayed that trust. But you can't just impulsively fire him because of _anger_, you need to give yourself time to think about this, and make the decision when you're not so emotional."

"There is nothing impulsive about it." I sat down on the couch; I was afraid that I wouldn't be able to remain standing much longer, yet for some reason I was unafraid to give Wilson a glimpse of my mental anguish. House may berate his best friend about meddling in the mindsets of other people, but Wilson generally had a good grasp of the actions people take and the psychological reasoning behind it. "It was my emotions that made me keep him on for so many years, I felt personally responsible for him, and his patients, and the patients who may have lived if he had been around to take their case. But I have to accept that my first responsibility lies with the hospital and the emotional welfare of countless people entrusted to our care. I need to let him go now and save his dignity from a time when he _will_ dig himself a grave so deep that there will be nobody who cares enough to help him out of it."

"Are you sure that this isn't to save _your_ dignity from emotional turmoil at an inevitable point in the future?" Wilson asked sadly. I looked up at him, either unwilling or unable to confirm or deny his question. At last, he sighed and broke my gaze. "I can see I'm not going to change your mind, but I still think you're being impulsive. Give yourself some time to think about it."

"And for House to change my mind." I murmured and looked back up at him in time to catch the tail end of a nod. "I'll give it a week."

At the door, Wilson turned back to me and fixed me with a penetrating, sorrowful gaze. "You're really going to do this aren't you?"

"Let's just hope he gives me an excuse not to." I replied, and sat gazing at the closed glass door long after Wilson had disappeared from sight.

,',

I was angry, livid; in the past four days House had not demonstrated a single shred of decency over his actions. Instead, he had turned the blame around on me; I caught him sneaking out of my office a few days ago, and this morning he arrived late and proceeded to berate me about the flow of traffic, of all things. I knew that Wilson had talked to him, and yet he refused to take anything seriously; as if I was overreacting, as if I had neither the power nor the capability to follow through on my threat, as if I had not spent the last four days torn up inside.

I wanted to scream and throw a chair through the glass wall of my office. I wanted to run a marathon in the freezing rain. What I _did_ do was calmly sit at my desk and attend to the mocking, intimidating papers while keeping my rage internal. Here was our governmental tax return—seven percent less than last year's—here was City Hall's response to my request to expand the north side parking lot—approved—and here was a letter from the B. MacDill Law Firm—'this is a letter regarding the treatment that the late C. Frost received at your hospital in the hours before her death.' C. Frost, Crystal Frost, House's patient, House's lawsuit.

The impulse to tear the paper apart with my teeth travelled down my nerves and tingled at my fingertips, begging me to let it free, but I folded my hands together and placed them in my lap. Anger, was a good thing, anger was my friend. If I could concentrate on my anger, if I could imagine that I could feel every blood cell in my body raging against the confines of their vessels, then I could channel my energy into a feeling that I _did_ understand and ignore all the ones that I didn't. I had already suppressed the cramps in my abdomen and the feeling of nausea that had been with me since before breakfast, now I tried to do the same with the part of my mind that was wailing at the loss of the comforting illusion that I had fooled myself into; that House just might have a conscience.

I had always defended his impulsions, his lapses in ethical consideration, because he had always—up until now—acted with unchecked tenacity in the best interests of the patients. Now I wasn't so sure; maybe always was about the puzzle to him, and never about the patient. Maybe he really did think that pain in his leg voided every other problem in the world, maybe I should stop protecting him, give him a dignified dismissal—for his sake and for mine. Of course I should, I knew that, there was no way to get around it. But could I do it? I had to, no matter how much mental anguish it caused me.

The decision would destroy us both, I knew that, and had accepted it. House would withdrawal into an unhealthy mixture of alcohol and pain medication and be bitter for years at yet _another_ one of my betrayals, while one way or another my guilt would consume me. But it was out of my hands; the ball was in his court now and he still had three days to give me some indication of responsibility, or of guilt, or a conscience…but he didn't care enough about any of this to do so.

I angrily swiped at my face and was almost surprised to find a bit of moisture, and a smear of mascara, transferred to the back of my hand. I couldn't work like this; I lunged to my feet but immediately sank back down in my chair with a silent gasp. A white hot fire was spreading out from where my hand was clutching my abdomen. This was more than just cramps, I felt like the muscles surrounding my stomach had been twisted together on a spinning wheel and knit into a dishcloth. I pulled myself to my feet, more slowly this time, and used my desk to support myself as I took a few shaky steps; my lower back protested the movement, I felt like the segments of my spine were being compressed on top of one another.

I twisted, hoping to relieve some of the pressure on my back and my eye fell on a spot of blood gleaming at me from the seat of my chair. No no, this could not be happening, not now, not ever. How could I have missed this? How could I have ignored the symptoms? A tiny, ignored voice of practicality had another question for me; I was in a hospital, why could I not call for help?

I stiffly took off my jacket and tied it around my waist; it wouldn't dispel attention but it could at least save my dignity. I then squared my shoulders walked out of my office, doing my best to disguise any signs of discomfort. A bathroom, I needed to get to a bathroom. The clinic was right outside my office, it had a very public, very busy, set of washrooms; that wouldn't do. I needed to get to the end of the hall where there was a wheelchair accessible washroom, more importantly with privacy and a lock.


	5. Chapter 5

**  
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**House**

There were no red lollypops. I dug through the jar—twice—and dumped the contents on the nurse's desk before I was sure. The multitude of other colours laughed at me as they bounced off the cluttered surface and spilled onto the floor. Surely nobody could expect me to deal with runny noses all day without a red lollypop, so where were they kept? I leaned over the desk and opened all the drawers within my reach—Evil Nurse Brenda was preparing the room I had just vacated for the next prostate exam, so I couldn't ask her, but even if I could what would she tell me? I know that if I had gone through and gotten a nursing degree then nobody would be able to tell _me_ it was in my job description to replenish the jar of lollypops, but we are talking about a group of people who got an education to change adult diapers.

I straightened up, more to get away from the two children scrambling at the rain of candy by my feet than to abandon my search; is it the janitor's duty? Or maybe there was a kid who came by every night whose whole job was to change the jar of lollypops—if that was the case he needed to be fired for doing such a shitty job. I turned towards the hallway—the janitor's closet shouldn't be too hard to break into—when the door to Cuddy's office opened. This in itself shouldn't have been unusual, but it caught my attention because ordinarily the door would swing off its hinges to reveal a very determined Dean of Medicine marching out like a prison warden. Today the glass door opened hesitatingly, and no more than strictly necessary, to admit Doctor Cuddy, who was moving slowly and deliberately.

I followed her with my eyes for a moment before the rest of me followed suit. She had her blazer tied around her waist, which is one kind of treason against the gods of fashion that Cuddy would never commit; she would consider it in the same league of abominations as wearing a bright red Rolling Stones t-shirt under a formal shirt. I caught up to her with a great deal more ease than I would have been able to under normal circumstances, and observed her stature. She straightened her shoulders stiffly before uncharacteristically rounding them ever so slightly; she must have a terrible backache. A deep sense of foreboding came over me when I came up beside her.

"Go away." She murmured slightly breathlessly. Difficulty breathing: indicative of trauma to the rib cage, asthma or some other lung oriented problem, or chest or abdominal pain. My mind reluctantly started to make the connection, abdominal pain: shit.

I gripped her elbow and steered her towards the empty exam room; or the exam room which would have been empty if Evil Nurse Barbara hadn't been standing at the doorway frowning at me.

"House," Cuddy gasped, just loud enough for me, and the white coated intrusion to our privacy, to hear. "If you have any shred of decency at all, _please_ leave me alone."

"Not to worry, we're just going in to steal a quickie." I told Evil Nurse Brianna, my voice nearly catching in my throat at the first word. She frowned at me unbelievingly but offered no word of protest. Neither did Cuddy, which worried me. Actually that's not true, I wasn't worried; I knew exactly what was happening, and why, and I didn't like it one bit.

"Lie down." I told her gruffly as I closed the door and the window coverings.

"I'm not…"

"Just do it." I turned back to her with a bottle of gel in my hands, ready to make a sexually inappropriate comment about lubricant, and found her backed up against the exam bed with her jacket tucked protectively in her folded arms. I sighed and gently pushed her reluctant form backwards so she had the choice of either losing her balance or complying with my demands.

"Just don't think I'll put up with anything funny." She shifted herself backwards on the paper clad bed while I took her jacket from her and draped it over the chair.

I lifted her shirt and started applying the cool gel onto her stomach; a little more gently than I would have with any other patient, but certainly not affectionately either. "How far along were you?"

"About nine weeks."

Nine weeks. I switched on the machine and pressed the wand against her stomach. "No foetal heartbeat."

Nine weeks, how could I have missed this? I thought back to my not-so-brilliant idea that came to me two days ago when I shook my bottle of pills. They had clattered like a baby's rattle and comforted like a baby's bottle. _How_ could I have missed this?

Cuddy turned away from the monitor and focused her gaze on the ceiling, her eyes a little more blue than usual but no tears spilling from their depths. I switched off the ultrasound machine—I didn't want to look at a pathetic little image of a dead embryo either—and took my time cleaning off the wand.

I offered her the box of tissues when I figured that I'd given her enough time to brood, but she either didn't see the gesture or was too wound up in her own thoughts to respond. I plucked a few petals from the box and briefly considered cleaning the gel off her abdomen for her, but I felt that would be far too intimate. It was a gesture for somebody gentle, somebody trustworthy; so I pressed the tissues into her hand instead.

"We should get you upstairs; it'll all be over shortly."

She shook her head mutely, still staring intently at the ceiling.

"You've just had a miscarriage, nobody will think any less of you if you take some time off work." I pressed.

"I don't want anybody to think anything."

I understood immediately. There was something undignified about pregnancy, and miscarriage, even when it was meticulously planned by a control freak like Cuddy. "Well you can't stay here, people will start to notice, and you can't go home."

"Sure I can."

"If there's an incomplete passage of…"

"I'm a doctor too." She said with a strange mixture of gentleness and force.

"Somebody should check your dilation."

"You're not coming anywhere near me!"

"All the more reason we should get you upstairs." I pointed out, allowing her logic to work in my favour.

She sat up stiffly "I'm going home for the rest of the day."

"Well you'd better be prepared to take a taxi, because you're not driving anywhere."

"I can drive."

"Don't be stupid; your pride is going to get you killed. Have you eaten anything today?"

She frowned. "No, I was sick this morning."

Nausea; it shouldn't have been significant in the first trimester, but I knew that in this case it was; significant to me at least. "Then you're not driving."

She glowered. "There's a couch in my office, I'll wait it out in there. But nobody else has to know about this."

Habitually, I was about to inform her that if she wanted to hole herself up in her office with the blinds closed to deal with a traumatic and potentially dangerous event when there was a better option available then I wouldn't waste any energy talking her out of it, but… There was something innately sad about that picture, especially since I knew that she really shouldn't be in this situation, since I knew…

"I'll drive you home." My traitor mouth was forming the words before my horrified mind caught up. I certainly did _not_ want to spend the entire day stuck at Cuddy's house wrestling with foreign emotions while trying to hide it behind an indifferent demeanour.

She studied me for a moment before responding to my generosity with a confused, almost disdainful "why?"

"I…want to drive your car." I stammered lamely.

She grimaced, the expression mixed up with half a scowl and a whisper of a smile as she slid off the bed. "Well as long as you're not acting out of compassion."

"Nah," I inched towards the door, desperate to escape the non-communicated emotions in the room. "I'll create a diversion and meet you in the parking lot."

"House?" Her voice, timid and unsure, made me pause with my hand on the doorknob, but I hurried out of the room before she could finish her thought. Whatever she had to say, be it a hormonal confession of fear or a misdirected declaration of gratitude, I didn't want to hear. She wouldn't be so quick to trust me and thank me if she knew the truth of the matter, which I wasn't about to tell her but that didn't mean I had to play along with her ignorant trust in my alleged good nature.


	6. Chapter 6

**Cuddy**

I don't know what House did to create his "diversion," and I doubted that I would inquire about it, but whatever it was certainly did the trick. I managed to avoid attention as I retreated back to my office to fetch my purse and skulked down to the parking lot. Even with the extra time I spent notifying an office clerk about my absence, I was still waiting awkwardly by my car for several minutes before I heard the irregular rhythm made by two shoes and a cane in a silent parking garage. The clenching discomfort in my gut was mirrored on House's face, but I refused to feel sorry for him; if he didn't want to be in this situation then he should have let me alone when I demanded.

An uncomfortable silence descended over us, broken only by House's not so infrequent mutterings about incompetent drivers and the incivility of any vehicle with more than two wheels, but I made no effort to break it. The stillness gave me an opportunity to gather up my thoughts and my strength into a conveniently accessible ball.

I wasn't sure if I was still angry with Dr. House for his blatant disregard of ethical considerations regarding the Frost case, but I was furious with the way he had acted since. As if I was overreacting, as if I had nothing to do at my job except give him attention and defend his insensibilities to the board and the rest of the staff, as if he was an innocent bystander in the whole affair. He may be doing me a favour by keeping my secret and looking after me now, but then again he may also be hoping for blackmail material and the day off work. He still had a lot to prove if he wanted to restore my faith in his abilities as a respectable asset to the hospital.

"Are the cramps receding?" He finally asked once the car had been safely parked in my driveway and we were presented with the opportunity to escape from the confined proximity of the other.

"Some."

"Is there any bruising or tenderness on your abdomen?" It was hard to tell if House was concerned about me or not as he masked his questions as the sort that any doctor liable to insurance payments would ask a patient in similar circumstances.

"I don't think so." I replied, fiddling with the key to my front door.

"And how heavy is the bleeding?"

"I'm not sure yet." I dumped my purse and keys by the front door and made my way to the bathroom.

"I don't care if you don't want to talk to me, but the polite thing to do would be to give me some warning before you keel over and die."

"I'll be sure and let you know."

"Leave the door unlocked!"

I closed the bathroom door on his voice and purposely locked it. It wasn't as though I thought myself invincible, or somehow above risk since I was a doctor and could in theory recognize and respond to signs of danger, but more that I thought trust had to be earned. I was trying to tell House that I would rather have a concussion from a fainting spell in a locked bathroom than risk him barging in on me and making a comment about my tan line.

The time I spent cleaning myself up and unsuccessfully attempting to salvage my skirt from the bloodstain gave me an opportunity to brood; not about House, for the first time in four days, but about the little life which as recently as yesterday had been growing inside of me. I felt hollow, appropriately barren of emotions at the dramatic alteration of my future. The doctor in me understood this as a matter of biology; there had always been a 40 percent chance of miscarriage in a woman of my age, besides that I dealt with death every day and I didn't see this one as an overly traumatizing one. Still, I did feel a void, a deep sense of loss draining my energy and my soul. I didn't feel the need to comfort myself or "deal with the situation" the way the books suggested ("talk it over with your partner or somebody whom you trust inexplicably"), Ha! All I wanted to do was curl up on my bed for the rest of the day.

The only problem with that plan, as I was reminded upon returning to the living room, was perched on the bureau and making a thorough examination of my CD collection.

"Don't you believe in variety?" He asked scornfully.

"You tell me." I said inattentively, reasoning that it was easier to keep him talking than to put myself on the defensive.

"You have two CDs of Cat Stevens and _six_ of Elton John. I would have to say that no, you don't."

"Something wrong with Elton John?" I asked absently.

"Too much of anything can be deadly, as a doctor you should know that."

I frowned, momentarily confused. That certainly seemed like a very Greg House thing to say, but it lacked his usual sarcastic forwardness; instead he seemed timid, almost ashamed, as he turned his face from me and returned to his inspection of my music collection.

"What did you mean by that?"

"I meant exactly what I said. It's not that difficult." He growled, still not meeting my eyes.

Rather than call him on the obvious aversion to the truth, I settled myself down on my couch; the cramps had almost completely receded but I was still left with stiff muscles and an empty soul.

"Why did you offer to take me home if you don't want to be here?" I asked, curious rather than offended; I had long since ceased to take House's lapses in social consideration as a personal attack.

"Why would you pay for a Rod Stewart CD? Didn't anybody ever teach you that money is valuable?"

I sighed. "I realize that you don't want to be here, probably more so than I don't want you do be here, but can't we pretend to be civilized?"

"I'd rather be open about the fact that I am identifying with Anne Frank right now." He replied tartly.

I glowered, disgusted at his choice of imagery. "Very well, let's be brutally honest with each other. You and I both know that I plan on firing you in three days time, but before you start feeling sorry for yourself, let me remind you of something. You have had, and still have, ample opportunity to change my mind but victimizing yourself and making holocaust allusions to your Jewish colleague is _not_ the way to go about doing it. I never thought I'd say this to anybody older than my eight year old nephew, but smarten up!"

He at least had enough dignity to look ashamed, or I hoped it wasn't my imagination considering he once again turned his head away from me.

I leaned forward, hoping to catch his eye. "I don't want to fire you, House. Please prove me wrong, prove to me that you understand how serious this is." My traitor voice caught in my throat, emitting a tell-tale, and rather embarrassing, sob. I reached forward and touched his hand where his white knuckles held his cane in a death grip, wanting, _needing_ him to acknowledge my words.

The result was instantaneous, and far more intense than I could ever have expected. He jerked his hand away from me as if I had burned him and in a flurry of lanky limbs and flying CDs, he distanced himself from my spot on the couch. "You're not wrong." He told me firmly and shamefully, and looking directly at me for the first time in a long while.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: I would like to take this opportunity to assure all of those nice people out there who are sadistically plotting my demise that I know exactly where this storyline is going, but I happen to be addicted to the bittersweet nectar of characterized tension so... read on!**

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**House**

I had been trying to convince myself that I could handle this situation. Surely guilt was still as foreign an emotion to me now as it ever had been, and it couldn't be too hard to be a rude jackass and distance myself from my verbal sparring partner, could it?

Not for the first time in my life, I cursed my capabilities for observation, my photographic memory, and my ear for perfect pitch. Several images from throughout the day had attached themselves to me, floating around in my mind and randomly plastering themselves in front of my eyes at the most inconvenient moments. I could see Cuddy's—Lisa's-- full eyes as she was faced with confirmation of her deepest fears in the clinic exam room, and those same eyes, empty and desolate as she wandered in a daze through what should have been her home and sanctuary.

I would never forget the mask of strength she wore in front of me, or the way she had quietly accepted my attack of her CD collection; I had wanted, _needed_ her to match my will with her own, to silently inform me that nothing had changed; but she never did. I remember her voice, calling out to me in the exam room, I ran from it then but it followed me through the hospital, assaulting me in the overpowering silence of the car ride and refusing to be drowned out by anything I did to distract my mind from it. And then her voice, insecure and pleading, reached out to me once more. My musical ears, trained from childhood to respond to the relationship between pitch and rhythm, picked up on the wealth of emotion in her tone.

"Please prove me wrong. Prove to me that you understand how serious this is."

Had she left it at that, I may have been able to retain some form of composure. I would have retreated to a catatonic state, by sheer force of will disconnecting my burdened mind from any ties to the desolate reality that I had made myself, but at least I would have avoided any outburst.

But it was her touch that was my undoing. It was the tiniest brush of fingertips against hands that for so long had been barren of physical contact. She was reaching out emotionally by way of the physical encounter of hands, to the very person who had wronged her. I felt dirty, unworthy; I was contaminating her. I wanted to run from her until my lungs tore open and my toenails fell off, but my pain reminded me of my worthless body's limitations.

Unable to run or hide any longer, I did the only thing I could do; I turned like a cornered animal to confront its attacker, which in this case took the form of an immoral cripple.

"You're not wrong." I forced myself to meet her eyes, I felt obligated to commit her look of shock and vulnerability to memory, to forever haunt me. "I don't deserve any more chances, I don't even deserve the amount of guilt you're placing on yourself. Come Friday, your job will become a lot easier."

The look of surprise on her face was now accompanied by burdened curiosity. "You can't be serious. I mean, what am I saying, of course you are but… why... that is to say, what brought this on?"

Habitually, I began to look away to escape the tension in the room, but then I forced myself to once again rest my eyes on hers; I wanted to purge her of all feelings of responsibility and of guilt. "I misdiagnosed you, this pregnancy, it's all my fault."

She smiled slightly in spite of the atmosphere of gloom that I was spreading throughout the house. "I like to think that I would know if the pregnancy had anything to do with you."

"Not that, the miscarriage. I saw the symptoms of pregnancy and misdiagnosed them. They were all there, right under my nose, but I explained away the shifting of your weight, your hormones, your breasts…" I ploughed ahead as if I hadn't heard her annoyed snort. "and then I added to the equation the symptoms of your anger and stress and came up with a nervous breakdown."

"You can hardly be expected to…"

"But I am, it's my job. You never experienced morning sickness did you?"

"Only this morning, but not all women do."

I shook my head sadly. "It was a bet with Wilson, well not really a bet, I mean… it was on my side but I don't think he knows about it…"

"You're not making any sense."

I wanted to dispel the sound of concern in her voice; she had no business worrying about me after what I had done, so I blurted out my confession in a single breath. "I wanted to prove to him that you would keep working even while sick so I spiked your calcium pills to mimic the symptoms of the flu."

"You wha—you replaced my calcium pills with what? With something…"

"Something that caused your miscarriage." I finished for her.

"Three days ago, you snuck into my office." She didn't sound like she was really asking me, but I decided to answer anyway.

"Yes, but I didn't replace them, I just added six more to the bottle, which is the reason for the time delay. I didn't realize you were pregnant, otherwise I would never…" I shut up, realizing how uncharacteristically I was rambling.

"Because of a bet… with Wilson." She said slowly, her mind gradually making unpleasant connections. She remained silent a while longer and I waited as patiently as I could for the inevitable outburst, but she was quiet, her sad, almost puzzled blue eyes focused on me.

"I should have realized." I finally said when the silence became unbearable; I wanted her to understand everything I had done and respond with anger. Anger was familiar territory for both of us; I could deal with it, but more importantly, so could she. I wanted her so angry that she would never forgive me until I was a nameless cadaver in the morgue.

But she stayed silent, her expression sorrowful and pained, and her eyes remained pointed in my general direction, even though her gaze was unfocused and vague.

"Yell at me." I finally asked—_begged_—of her. "Scream, call the cops, beat me over the head. Here, use this." I tried to hand her my cane but she turned her head from the offending piece of wood as if disgusted by the very sight of it.

"I think…" She began, her voice low and broken by emotion. "…that you had better leave."

I don't think I've ever liberated anyone of my presence as quickly as I did at that moment. My broken explanation, the one sided conversation, it all made the situation so much more real for me. My carelessness—no, I hadn't been careless, I had been deliberately reckless, intrusive, irresponsible—it had all resulted in the loss—the death—of the developing child of someone whom I cared about. I was through lying to myself; yes, I was concerned; yes, I cared about her; and yes, I felt guilty: damn guilty. I felt guilty because I _was_ guilty, on two fronts; first when I had misdiagnosed her, and then when I had poisoned her.

Cause and effect; responsibility; compassion; those words, _her_ words, were drifting through my head. She had wanted me to prove her wrong, but instead I had taken all of those words and fouled them in the worst possible manner. She would be better off without me, the hospital would be better off without me, the _world_ would be…

My leg not so subtly brought me back to my surroundings; an intense pressure was numbing my toes and shooting stitches up my side and doing any number of immeasurable things to my absent thigh muscles. I still had a nearly full bottle of vicodin bouncing along in my pocket but I resisted the pull; I didn't deserve any relief, I _wanted_ the pain to distract me from the sick feeling in the back of my throat. Tiny pills had been the source of my problems for so long, no, I had _made_ them the source of my problems, and now I had unfairly made them the source of the problems of an innocent colleague.

I was only two blocks away from Cuddy's house, but already my leg was screaming out in protest, my side was seizing up, my shoulder was aching. I was still miles away from home and even farther from where my bike rested patiently in the hospital parking lot. As a rule I never carried any ID or money; I had my cell phone but the thought of conversing with another human being was disdainful, so I continued walking. I walked, I hobbled, I limped, I stumbled; I rejoiced in every painful protest my body offered against this abuse. I could deal with physical pain, I was accustomed to it; emotional pain was new, it was foreign, and it was greatly, infinitely, worse.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Sorry it took so long to update everyone, I re-wrote half of this chapter and all of the next one. I'm still not entirely sure I'm happy with them, but at least my story is back on track and everything can be resolved nicely. I'm sure you're all thanking me for that.**

**And by the by, I now accept anonymous reviews, so nobody has any excuses anymore.**

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**House**

I don't know why everybody thinks that Einstein was so smart. I could have told you that time is relative, as is place, as is nearly every other god-damned thing in this measurable universe. Take distance for example; it takes ten minutes to get to my house from Cuddy's by motorcycle, half an hour for an able bodied runner, two at a steady walking pace, and freaking forever for a degenerate cripple.

I don't even know what time I stumbled through my door, I can only recall what I did after that. I hurled my half empty bottle of vicodin at the far wall and spent the next half an hour coaxing the last pill out from underneath the couch. I dumped two shots of whiskey down my throat and the rest of the bottle down the sink. I placed a pot of water on the stove intending to make pasta but then allowed it to boil dry, and I spent the better part of an hour fiddling around with the hot and cold taps in my shower. Finally, exhausted by the physical and emotional toil of the day's events, I collapsed into a fretful sleep.

I had every intention of remaining curled up on top of the covers of my bed for the next week or so; that way I wouldn't have to face Lisa—Cuddy—again and she would have no trouble explaining her decision to fire me to the hospital board of directors. I would get my letter of dismissal in the mail, and by the time Wilson got worried enough about me to break down the door, my lifeless cadaver would already be rotting into the mattress.

Unfortunately, Wilson was inconsiderate enough to ruin this plan almost before I had started implementing it; I really should have beaten him into submission the moment I realized that he still had a copy of my key.

"You're bike is still at the hospital, I figured you'd need a ride."

"I don't, go away." I told him, hiding my face under my arm.

"Just think of Cuddy's face when you show up early."

I pulled myself into a foetal position—well aware of the irony of it—with a groan and a further hiding of my eyes. "I'm not going to work." I finally mumbled, barely loud enough for me to hear, so I have no idea how he could have made sense out of it.

"You're not staying home because of a hangover, come on, get up." He said loudly, flicking the light switch on and off several times.

I once again told him to go away. Well, what I said had the same meaning as "go away," but the language I used was a fair bit stronger; I'm sure he understood my meaning just the same.

"You know," He ungracefully flopped down on my bed, causing the mattress to rebound and squeal in protest. "You left pretty early yesterday, but I don't think anybody noticed because Cuddy left around the same time. How ever did you get back home without your motorcycle by the way?"

"I didn't."

"Aren't you going to joke about it? Tell me how good the sex was?"

I used even stronger language than I did before, surprising even myself with its vulgarity. I didn't want any reminders of why I was in such a state; I didn't want Cuddy's name even mentioned around me, much less degraded in such a manner; I shielded myself away from the irony in the knowledge that it was me who had led by example of this way of talking.

"Oh come now, it couldn't have been that bad."

I finally sat up, wanting nothing more than to box Wilson's ears. "I can be ready in fifteen minutes if you promise to keep your fat mouth shut."

Wilson didn't hold out to his side of the deal, even though I was ready in less than ten; I avoided his meddling with the ease of long practice, but the inquiries served as a painful reminder of everything that I so desperately wanted to forget. _"You don't look hung over, so why is there an empty bottle of whisky in your sink?"_ His questions echoed in my head long after he had succumbed to the pressing silence of the car ride. _"I know you left with Cuddy and it wasn't for sex, so did you manage to convince her not to fire you?"_ And the worst one, _"…or maybe it was for sex, otherwise you would be bragging about it, she's not hiding in your closet it she?"_

"Wilson, you are probably the closest friend I have ever had, so I am going to tell you something very honest, brother to brother." I finally told him when he started to follow me around the hospital to figure out why I wasn't using the clinic entrance. "You are an ass and if you don't get out of my sight soon you will have Woody here" I held the business end of my cane at eye level, "give you a rather careless prostate exam."

He smirked, an impish look in his eye. "Very well, but I saw the clean pot on your stove, you haven't eaten since that chocolate cake yesterday at lunch. You and your stomach will come crawling back to me."

He gave me a cheerful, Mickey Mouse type wave as he trotted back to use the clinic entrance, the one that herds 80 percent of the hospital populace directly in the path of Cuddy's domineering inspection. I briefly considered hurling my cane after him but even the thought was exhausting; besides that, I felt I could get more satisfaction out of smashing the hated thing against my impressionable thigh. I hadn't even entered the building yet, but I could already tell that this day was going to be incredibly long.

,',

My intention to avoid human contact was looking more and more difficult as I navigated through the busy hallways. Fortunately, I never encountered the curly haired hospital matriarch, but my bitter triumph was short lived as I realized for the first time just how much my three employees had learned in three years of my teaching.

"He doesn't _look_ like he got laid." Chase remarked, making no effort to mask his comment from my ears.

Cameron managed to look both proud and concerned at the same time. "What did I tell you? He would never…"

"Oh yes he would." Forman interrupted, and I couldn't help feeling a strange sense of pride at the way he incorporated the contrasting expressions of contempt for me and impatient amusement for Cameron.

"Yeah, but would she?" Chase asked, looking genuinely curious.

"Haven't I taught you three anything about discussing sensitive topics while the patient is in the room?" I gave them my best glare and made a desperate grab for the nearest of the two charts which were perched patiently on the table; anything to put a stop to their discussion.

"Clearly you have." Forman said with a snort.

I carelessly tossed the first of the charts down on the table and reached for the second. "Boring, gimme that one."

"They're the same case." Cameron told me. "Fourteen year old fraternal twins are admitted showing the same symptoms with a four hour delay in the progression of the symptoms of the boy…"

As predicted, my day was long, painful, nerve-wracking, and guilt-ridden. I tried to avoid all signs of Li—of Cuddy, but it was nearly impossible to ignore the signs of her haunting presence in the hospital: I would notice her signature at the bottom of a document, her name mentioned by two eager interns, her writing on the notice board, and once a flash of a salmon pink jacket in the corner of my eye. Each near sighting was accompanied by the same pattern; the rocketing of my blood pressure and a constricting of my throat, a futile disguise of the panicked way I suspiciously surveyed every person in my vicinity, followed by smouldering hot coals of pain in my leg and the self-loathing shame that accompanied self scrutinization. It was a day of hiding; I was hiding from her, from my thoughts, from my conscience, from everybody close to me and all of their cursed meddling. The only way I could figure out to effectively hide from all of those things at once was to focus on the case.

And so I immersed myself into working the puzzle before me, glad to have something to distract my mind from its self destructive meanderings, and to distract the impertinent trio from their speculations about my life. It was an interesting case; the siblings each lived with a different foster family, and had developed their symptoms within hours of returning to their mother's house for some sort of weekly supper. I didn't much care about the particulars—much to Cameron's annoyance--but it did mean that I could discount neither biological nor environmental factors.

I ordered all the usual tests, and even took a few of my own when I couldn't handle the burden of my own thoughts any longer. It was in the MRI viewing room that the first break appeared; the break in the case, the break in my fragile self discipline, and, as cliché as it sounds, the very near break of whatever I have that acts as a substitute for my heart.

I love that MRI; we have a history together, we have an understanding. Sometime last year I began to secretly keep track of the number of patients who developed some sort of new symptom and/or cool mental breakdown in that futuristic tube as opposed to the number of useful results that the thing gave me when used properly. I'm not sure whether to count this case in the former category or not considering the female twin hadn't even made it across the room before she developed muscle spasms.

Unable to run the test, I sent both patients back to their room with the nurse in tow while I sat verbally fencing ideas with the three musketeers. Dodge, parry, lunge, and…

"They have to be reacting to something."

"Something that doesn't have an effect on the rest of us."

"Genetic condition offset by environmental factors?"

"Or environmental factors that began in the womb."

"Their mother didn't get into drugs until after the twins were born."

"So she says."

"So what triggered it?"

I'm pretty sure I know who said what, and in which order, but none of that really matters. The only important part to note is the gaping hole in the conversation where Dr. Forman _should_ have crossed his arms in that arrogant and condescending way that only _I_ can pull off and said something along the lines of "a neurological condition explains everything…"

The absence of such a comment probably indicated that Forman didn't think the problem could be neurological, which of course meant that I had to consider the possibility.

"The female twin…"

"Andrea." Cameron piped up helpfully.

"…was dropped off several hours before her brother."

"Adrean."

I shook my head. "What a horrible thing to do to twins. Anyway, their symptoms have progressed uniformly since the offset except for when we separate them…"

"Haven't we already discounted a psychic bond?" Forman asked sarcastically.

"No, we couldn't prove one so we ignored the possibility. We need to run another stress test, this time with them both in the room and we also need to monitor the twin that we aren't harassing."

None of them moved; Cameron did not point out the cruelty of repeating that particular test more than once per day, Chase did not display his inability to learn that I never answer when he asks me what to look for, and Forman…well he just focused on a spot beyond my shoulder as if I hadn't just infringed on his territory.

I gazed suspiciously from one to the other, my eyes lingering the longest on my pet neurologist, who continued to ignore my challenge in favour of smirking at the wall behind me with an infuriatingly smug tilt to his full lips. My mind barely had time to process this odd behaviour before Forman confirmed my fears by nodding. He wasn't responding to a psychic link, or a muscle twitch, instead his head bob was an acknowledgement; of a person, or perhaps of a preconceived agreement with that person, but I only knew for certain that he was not looking at me.

I turned, as slowly as I could manage, but my tardiness wasn't nearly enough time to prepare myself for what I knew I would find: I was trapped. My thoughts were trapped in my mind, just as my body was trapped in a cheerfully lit crypt with the only exit being blocked by the female personification of my mental anguish.

Doctor Cuddy had wedged herself in the partially open door. An ocean of expression was in her eyes; an ocean which could have swept me away and drowned me in the turf, if only I felt myself worthy of the privilege.


	9. Chapter 9

**Cuddy**

I was no longer angry with House; anger was an emotion to be employed when he broke an MRI, induced a seizure, or tricked a patient and her doctors into surgery. No, I didn't feel any anger, nor any betrayal, nor any sorrow, or any…thing. I was just there, drifting through my hospital duties like a disembodied spectre unable to let go of a past life. I didn't know how I felt about yesterday's events, nor did I know how he felt. I didn't know what I could say to him or how he would react and I was mentally exhausted by the mere presence of such questions. And so I responded to his desperate attempts to avoid me by avoiding him. Or at least I did until a certain sheet of paper struggled to the surface of my cluttered desk like a swimmer desperately trying to keep his head above rough water.

Consequently I found myself in an all too familiar action: descending on the halls of the hospital like a November snowstorm in an attempt to find the evasive Dr. House. In the end he proved to be as elusive as ever and I had to sweet talk some assistance out of Dr. Forman, who pointed me in the direction of the MRI viewing room.

House was engrossed in a case when I silently entered the room and I stood back to watch him. There was a moment in which time seemed to stop; I didn't need him to be facing me to know that his eyes were unfocused and pointed off to the right, or that his jaw was relaxed and his lips slightly parted. It was as clear to me as the tilt to his head and the slightly elevated poise to his hands which I _could_ see from my vantage point. It has always seemed to magical to me when House's thoughts are channelled like raindrops into a downspout; I could never hope to understand what went on in his brilliant mind at times like this, but the one thing that I was sure of is that these precious few seconds are about the only times that I can dogmatically put faith in the pure intensions of his mind.

In those few seconds before House switched the direction of the conversation—something about a stress test for a set of twins—my thoughts also flowed magically into order. It was as if I could see everything that has happened, and everything that will happen, and everything that I could not do to change it.

By the time House clued in to my presence and turned around, I was feeling that the easiest thing in the world would be to sink down to the floor and allow the world to continue functioning without me. This wasn't a good start to any confrontation with him, much less the one about to take place.

He could only stare at me, his face reflected a mixture of pain and dejection, and I found myself no more able to initiate the conversation than he. Was this what had come of what had once been such an intense relationship—if that was even the word I was looking for, "set of interactions" was probably more applicable—were we doomed to limit our communications to sorrowful glances and the realms of perpetual avoidance?

"Umm," An alien voice imposed on the silence, and it took me a moment to realize that it was not divinely sent to make the tension implode in on itself, but did, in fact, originate from Dr. Forman. "Why don't the three of us go and get started on that stress test?"

It took me a moment more to interpret a plea for me to un-block the doorway embedded in that message, so I moved accordingly. House watched the three of them leave the way a death row prisoner would watch the wardens prepare a syringe, averting his gaze only when Cameron glared at me and shot him a sympathetic look. If I weren't so impassive, I would have laughed at the irony of the situation.

"So how easy was it to convince Forman to betray me?" House broke the silence only after the door had secured safely behind the lagging Dr. Cameron.

I didn't bother responding; I didn't even ask how he could have known that I had needed Forman's help to find him. Instead, I stepped forward and waved the burdened sheet of paper in front of him. "Care to tell me what this is?"

He didn't even look at it. "Do you need me to explain it to you?"

"If necessary."

"You know very well what it is. What more do you want from me, an apology?"

"That would help."

"No, it would not!" He snapped, advancing on me. "An apology wouldn't change anything, don't you see? After tomorrow we will never see each other again, and if I start getting all gushy now, that will only add to whatever misplaced sense of guilt you're experiencing now. It will make you think that underneath I really am a good person and you'll second guess your decision to fire me. None of that would change the fact that I misused my power and that you lost the child you will never know."

I played back his outburst in my head. '_The child you will never know.'_ The words somehow made the situation seem more real for me, as if I had stopped watching my life from a TV screen and had suddenly started experiencing it. Up until now I had been thinking of the embryo as a collection of cells multiplying at a rate that would alarm an oncologist. Now I thought of the toddler who would never be given life; it was a sobering thought.

"You are naïve, Cuddy." His voice dropped a pebble into the pond of my thoughts. "You are extremely intelligent and you understand more about life than most people, but you are incredibly naïve. You look for ways to take responsibility off of other people and claim it for yourself. If you had an ounce of common sense you would have called the police on me the second I told you what I did."

I closed my eyes briefly in an attempt to compose myself; I probably could have argued with him. I _could_ have argued, if I had more energy, if my mind wasn't so torn, if I wanted to put myself on the defensive… if I disagreed with what he said.

"You're feeling guilty about this, aren't you?" His hypnotizing voice continued its assault. "You've got no reason to, but you're trying to find excuses for me, to somehow make this situation less than it is."

I shook my head to avoid dwelling on what he was saying and once again loosely held the paper up in front of his nose. "So where does this fit in?"

"That…" He was kind, almost tender, as he tightened my fingers around the document and pressed it back against my chest. "…is one less thing for you to feel guilty about."

I slumped back against the wall as he fetched his cane and retreated out of the room. It was a while before I was able to examine the paper once again; in my hands was the letter of resignation of Gregory House, M.D.

,',

The last thing in the world I wanted to do was answer the door, and the knock was so quiet, so timid, that the last person in the world I expected to see was Greg House. Yet here I was, loosely grasping a glass of untouched wine, and there he was, dividing his weight equally between his cane and my doorframe.

"I'm sorry." He blurted out. "I'm sorry I misdiagnosed your pregnancy, I'm sorry I poisoned your foetus, I'm even sorry that I'm here apologizing to you."

I blinked hard, to clear my head or to muddle it, I'm not sure which.

"I wasn't lying when I said it would only do you more harm than good, but I wanted you to understand…"

"To understand what?" I pressed when it became clear that he wasn't going to continue.

"Nothing, you already understand everything you need to."

"House, finish what you came here to say, not the excuses that your cowardice is telling you to make up."

"There are no excuses." His icy gaze sliced into me. "I did what I did and I'm not going to insult you by pretending that it's anything less than that. I just want you to know that I can't really make you understand how sorry I am. After today I will be out of your life and I guess I didn't want our last meeting to end the way it did at the hospital."

"You are aware that your last day of work is tomorrow, right?"

"You know me better than that."

"Yes." I said shortly. "Now I do."

He looked away, shifting his weight uncomfortably before he dragged his eyes back to me. "I'm selfish. I'm not here for your benefit, I'm here for mine. The best thing for you would be to leave and not look back but I can't, I…" He trailed off again and I began to think that this may not be one of his acts after all. "I want you to know that I do understand how serious this is, and I understand what my responsibility as a doctor is, and how I misused that. I never meant to hurt you, I guess I wanted to prove to you that you feel things too deeply and you work too hard, and in the end I proved that I don't feel deeply enough and I don't take my work seriously enough and... Damn, Lisa, I am so sorry."

I started at hearing such a strange duo of syllables come out of his mouth.

"Cuddy." He corrected himself, but it was too late.

I thought about the way my name had slipped off his tongue; he had caressed the word, making it seem melodic and graceful. Greg. I played around with his first name in my head. It was a sharp sounding name, starting and ending with an almost phlegmatic sound. Gregory House. Neither of his names suited him, the former being harsh and the latter being awkward; but then again, maybe there was no name in the world more appropriate.

He was now sagging against the doorframe, rubbing a weary hand over his scruffy cheek. "I wanted… to see you… one last time." He said between pauses, as if the words somehow drained him.

A nod was the most I could manage to acknowledge everything he had said, and I wilted like a severed flower as he fled away on his motorcycle. I brought my trembling hands together before I remembered that I was still holding a wine glass, and allowed the fragile glass to shatter on my front step before I remembered to react. Looking down at the mess of red liquid, I wondered briefly what kind of pattern a broken heart would make.

Back in the kitchen my gaze passed listlessly over the bottle of wine; I may even have poured myself another glass if I hadn't gotten distracted by something behind it. Sitting innocently on my counter top was that bottle of calcium pills which had caused so much grief.

_Don't be naïve Lisa._ My persona of rationality scolded. _It's not the pill's fault that _he_ is an immature barbarian._

I opened the bottle and dumped the contents onto the counter. _Too bad the child-proof cap is no defence against the most inquisitive toddler of all._ I silently thanked this sarcastic voice for helping me combat the tears which had been threatening to spill over since yesterday.

_There now, that's better. Only think of how humiliating it would be to cry over some tiny little pills. Wait a moment, look at that._ Obedient to my inner voice, I selected two capsules and examined them by the light of the window. One had a bit more lustre to it; it must have been one of the impostors.

I pawed through the mess on my spotless countertop like a cat over a fish tank; now that I knew what to look for it was relatively easy to spot the ones that House had sent to infiltrate the fortress. Here was another one, and another, and one more. The ones I was looking for appeared a bit heavier than their harmless counterparts; they rolled rather than bounced when my fingers accidentally knocked them. I found I could forget about everything that had been troubling my mind by turning this into a game; like a child with a puzzle (here's one), or like a miner panning for gold (and another one).

At long last I realized that I had been sifting through the clutter fruitlessly and reluctantly brought my mind away from childlike thoughts. The pills in my hands were small and deceivingly harmless looking. I rolled them around in my palm and frowned; something wasn't right, something wasn't adding up; or maybe it would be more accurate to say that something _was_ right, something _was_ adding up.

It didn't take me long to decide on a course of action. House had dominated the conversation in each one of our confrontations since my miscarriage, and it was high time I stood up and competed for power like any self respecting woman should do.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Greetings, my favourite little minions. Let me just start of by saying that this chapter was UNBELIEVABLY fun to write and I have been excited about getting this chapter down on paper since I first began the story. My only worry is that now it's out there I may begin to lose interest... which is why I am expecting lots of nice reviews :P

Actually, as long as at least one person enjoys reading it half as much as I enjoyed writing it, I'll be happy.

* * *

**House**

My experienced fingers explored and manipulated; they teased and caressed; they pressed their way deep into the very essence of her soul. I closed my eyes against the wealth of emotions radiating off of both of us; she was responding to me almost before my fingers had an opportunity to work their magic. We were in tune, in sync, we were one; she understood me the way no other ever could, and I felt comfortable baring depths of myself to her that I had not been consciously aware existed.

I leaned in to get closer to her as I increased the tempo, bringing her higher, and faster…

A noise behind me made me pause with my hands suspended over the keyboard of my piano, my friend, the only woman I could ever truly understand. The door to my apartment was opening, a pair of shoes was set aside, delicate feet were padding towards me, and instinctively I knew that the two most important women in my life were in the room with me.

I resumed my attentions to the former, bringing out a mournful song of loss and heartache. I didn't think that my piano would mind if I used her to communicate with Cuddy; I had always been more in tuned (literally) with music than I was with words. And so I played a haunting melody from the romantic era, jazzed up with the occasional cadence and syncopation of the beat.

The music engulfed me with feelings of pain that sank ever so much deeper than the gaping chasm in my leg; I played out my sorrow, and the grief that came with betrayal, as I imagined her to experience it. I poured into the music feelings of joy and of pain, feelings of hate and of lo—well, and of every other emotion I could possibly think of, and some I could not. I could only pray to whatever deities I did not believe in that she would get the message.

Judging by the length of silence that engulfed us after, I could only assume that she did. I made no move to break the peace; I don't think I could have if I wanted to. Silence is another form of music which is undervalued and underplayed. Silence, especially in the never still city, reveals much to us about the outside world.

"House?"

When at last the length of silence snapped I sighed and started pressing a single note on the keyboard over and over again. I had no desire to break the spell I had cast with my performance by doing something stupid like looking at her or saying something.

"House."

I played on, wondering how many different tempos and how many volumes I could get using only the high C.

"Greg!"

I added a G with my left hand. C for Cuddy, G for Greg. The notes worked well together, but it was a hollow, barren chord. I added an E, which sounded better but it was too ordinary.

"Look at me… Greg."

I added a B flat and was rewarded with the perfect example of a dominant seventh chord. It was strong, well grounded, hard to work with, and provided me with a very satisfying sense of dissonance and resolution.

Except that there were two extra notes in there, how could I explain them away? C was for Cuddy, G for Greg, E for…what? E for embryo, B for baby.

I snatched my hands away from the keyboard and whirled on the bench to face Cuddy. Some metaphors can only be taken so far.

She held out her hand, revealing a small collection of white pills. "You never did tell me what you put in with my calcium."

I had already looked away to combat the feeling of bile that was rising in my throat. What had possessed me to show up on her doorstep earlier tonight? "It will all be out of your system by now."

"That's not what I asked. How many did you say you added to the bottle?"

I glowered. "What does it matter? Go home and get on with your life!"

"It was seven wasn't it?"

"Six."

"How can you be sure?"

"They only had a small amount made up at the pharmacy when I arrived. It caused a great kerfuffle before I finally yelled that six was _more_ than sufficient for my needs. Any more questions?"

She once again held up her hand in between us. "Six, Greg. Count them."

I looked blankly at her hand; my mind had retreated to an infantile state and I had to labour long and hard to make myself understand. She seemed to feel it very important that I understand there were six pills in her hand: that was okay, I only added six; the math worked out.

"They're a bit heavier than the rest, they must have all sunk to the bottom."

So six equals six. Good, nothing tricky about that, but six shouldn't equal six should it? If there were six pills to begin with, and six were in her hand, then what did I poison her with?

My mind jumped from this catatonic state to being fully electrically charged at warp speed. I jumped to my feet, or at least I meant to. The end result however, involved my bum leg twisting painfully with the legs of the piano bench and the floor moving up towards me at an alarming rate. I made no move to catch myself; it was a manic-depressive pattern of mine; I had to fall all the way before I could start to pick myself up again.

But then _she_ was there, Lisa, or Cuddy, or possibly both, stepping up to catch me with her smaller form. I had no choice but to react, well technically, in the realm of possibilities I suppose I _could_ have fallen into her and knocked her into the piano, but that wouldn't have been good for either of my two favourite women.

I'm not sure exactly how, but somewhere in my half successful attempt to save her spine and my dignity we ended up part way across the room in a tangle of limbs and hair (hers, not mine), and clothing. Now that my arms were around her, I found it impossible to let go. I had always had a very dependent personality; right now my cane was on the other side of the piano, my vicodin was on the coffee table, and I needed her.

She cried, I didn't. Don't get me wrong, I tried to cry, really I did; somehow I thought it would probably do me a world of good. But it occurs to me how worthless the word _try_ actually is. One may as well walk up to a corpse in the morgue and say "tough break old chap, but to be fair I did _try_ to save your life." That's all very well and good, but the cadaver couldn't care one way or another.

Time wise I have no idea how long we stayed there; I have never permitted clocks in this room because the light from a digital clock bothers me and the ticking from a face clock irritates the hell out of me when I am on my piano. But judging from the internal clock located somewhere in my right thigh, we were there, leaning on each other and on the back of the couch for support, until half-past too long.

She must have come back to her senses before I did because by the time I regained my composure, her breathing was deep and even and her fingers were gently stroking my hair. I took a moment to assess the situation; we were on the floor of my living room, I was curled up against her with my legs entangled with hers, my arms around her waist, and my head… My head was exactly where I had so often imagined it could be; at hundreds of different times, and in every possible situation except this one.

"Better now?" She asked with an affectionate touch of scorn.

"You bet I am." I allowed a stream of air to escape my lips and travel down the V opening in her shirt. She yelped and tried to push me off. There's that word again, _try;_ while she was squirming away from me, I tightened my grip and snuggled closer to her bosom.

Finally, she succeeded in dumping me off and stormed off to the other side of the room. I grinned at her retreating back and made my way to the proper side of the couch, where my vicodin was propositioning from the coffee table.

I shouldn't have felt so relieved; if I had any amount of willpower I should have told her that I was still irresponsible and the world still sucked. But Dr. Lisa Cuddy, overambitious, neurotic dean of medicine, would have known that already; she had just experienced a miscarriage after all. It happens all the time, everywhere, it is one of those unfortunate facts of life which makes me not want to believe in God, because I would detest him if I did.

With that knowledge; that neither Cuddy nor her miscarriage was in any way special, that I was still a pessimistic masochist, and that I still held scarce little hope for the innate goodness of the world, I resolved to make at least one small part of life worth the breath required to keep living.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: Hello to all of you wonderful people. I figured that I owe everyone some resolution even though I am officially bored with the story, so you can expect one more chapter after this one. And just as a warning, you might want to eat a grapefruit once you're finished with this chapter.

* * *

**Cuddy**

I am Dr. Lisa Cuddy, M.D. The door to my office reminds me of that every day. It also says so on the top of my resume, followed by an embarrassingly long list of professional accomplishments. I have always considered it rather insulting that there is no room in that list for my greatest accomplishment of all: the 'ability to deal with conceited jackasses.'

It had been relatively simple to get through the past few days; all I had to do was remain calm, confident, and composed. I was calm; I had shown up at work to sign all the right forms and smile at all the right people. I was confident; I didn't even hesitate to march right up to House's door. I was composed; right up until the moment when my world quite literally came crashing down on top of me.

The more I tried to be strong, the more my composure disintegrated. I had told no one about my pregnancy, told no one about my miscarriage; I didn't think I needed to until a pair of strong arms around me and warm breath against my neck proved to be more than I could handle.

I cried for the life which began and ended inside my womb and for my own lonely existence, I cried away my stress and when I had exhausted myself of that, I cried for the suddenly vulnerable soul folded around me.

Finally, with one last sniffle and jagged sigh, I shifted against him, testing his receptivity. Greg—I simply could not think of him as 'House' when he was seducing his piano or clinging to my neck like a grad night hickey—was rigid. I could feel nearly every muscle in his body and each one of them, diaphragm included, was completely immobile. I began to wonder if I should act more like a doctor, a friend, or a vengeful Roman Goddess if he made himself pass out for lack of oxygen, but finally, one nerve at a time, I felt his body relax against mine.

"Better now?"

"You bet I am."

I growled and tried to shove him off as he finally found his breath; or rather, it found me; my cleavage to be precise. He didn't make it easy for me, but eventually my determination prevailed over his and I was able to abandon him on the floor while I returned to where I had left my work bag by the front door.

I spent more time riffling through the bag than I strictly needed, but I wanted to send the message to House, who I could hear shuffling around behind me, that he still had some _serious_ damage control to do.

"Strange, isn't it?" He called as I pretended to find what I had been looking for. "It never once occurred to me that sometimes a miscarriage is just a miscarriage."

"What do you mean, '_just_ a misc…'" I whirled around, both furious at his remark and terrified that he would try to make light of the situation.

"I was merely remarking on the lack of arrest warrants and restraining orders." He remarked quickly, looking rather terrified himself. "Although I shouldn't have the right to say anything until I've had the pleasure of excreting a microcosmic corpse out of my…"

"You can either shut your mouth now or rigour mortis will do it for you." I snapped and huffed over to his spot on the couch. I allowed a sheet of paper, House's letter of resignation from earlier today, to fall into his lap before I took a seat on his couch, as far as humanly possible from him.

He studied the print as though he had never seen it before. "What do you want me to do with this?"

"It's up to you. Anything really, other than what it's meant for."

"I formally retract my notice for termination of employment, at least until tomorrow." He placed the form face down on the coffee table, as if it would go away if we couldn't see it, and returned his attention to me. "Why have you been giving me so many chances?"

I glowered. "Why have you been ignoring them?"

"I'm a malicious jerk, that doesn't need discussion. I made your job infinitely more difficult and you gave me a week to prove myself, and then I graciously thanked you by causing you to miscarry. So why do you think I can make it up to you before tomorrow?"

"You didn't cause me to miscarry." I pointed out. "The pills…"

"The pills were there whether you took them or not, and I caused enough stress to more than make up for it." He shifted close to me, then closer still, seemingly undaunted by the fact that I straightened my back and stared straight ahead. "You are too trusting, too forgiving." He breathed into my ear, causing Goosebumps to race down my spine and sweep across my limbs like a snow swept landscape.

"That's not my vice, it's yours." The quivering in my voice gave lie to my words as he traced his lips delicately across my jaw line. "If you weren't so… determined to…" I gave up attempts at cognitive speech as he finished his journey by holding his relaxed lips just millimetres from the corner of my mouth. We were so close; I was sharing his breath, feeling his warmth, overwhelmed by the blue of his eyes; I could almost imagine that I was hearing the fluttering of his eyelashes. I had just enough willpower to restrain myself from crossing the miniscule distance between us, but not nearly enough to turn away.

Finally, after a few infinitely long seconds, he was the one to act. Not by moving in to claim my lips with his, as I was fully expecting him to, but by sitting back on the couch and studying me with his keen blue gaze. With no small amount of effort, I forced my clenched muscles to relax.

"Very well." He spoke slowly and deliberately after a long and awkward pause. "Since you're so determined not to fire me, or arrest me, _or_ slap me, what do you think I should do to make things up to you?"

"You could… help me find another acceptable sperm donor." I replied, half annoyed and half relieved at the change in atmosphere.

"You saw how well that works out." He replied in a gentler tone than I had ever heard out of him. "I won't suggest bearing the child of any nincompoop who thinks getting off into a paper cup will earn him a passage through the Pearly Gates."

"Your standards are higher than any father's. I half expect you to set a curfew for me and screen potential dates with a sawed off shotgun."

"That's not entirely fair, I would have approved of Wilson."

"So you think I should ask him?" I asked, even though the mere thought of such a thing was enough to send me into an uncomfortable round of shudders.

"No."

"And why not?"

"I _would_ have approved, except that you don't, which means that I don't."

"Fine, you asked me what you could do for me, and I made a suggestion. Now it is your turn."

Silence once again stalked forward to make her kill. I knew that Greg was thinking much the same thing I was, and knowing his mind as I did, I was sure it was probably very busy imagining all the various things that he could "do for me."

"I would make a lousy father." He finally broke the peace. "Can you just imagine me showing up late for her baseball games and making all the other parents cry?"

"Her?" I asked, raising one delicate eyebrow. "I don't suppose it's occurred to you that the child could be a boy?"

"A boy? Nah, what would I do with a boy?"

"You could…teach him baseball." I pointed out

"Every father wants his son to learn baseball, and every son grows up with a yearning desire to beat his father over the head with a baseball bat. Why should I conform to tradition?"

"You do realize that I'm asking, not pressuring you?" I asked, being all too aware of the seriousness of the conversation despite our light bantering.

"Yeah, I get that. Just as long as you know that I'm offering, not accepting." He suddenly leaned his head back over the couch and grinned evilly at the ceiling. "Am I the only one who gets a morbid sense of amusement out of the fact that I'm discussing having children with a woman who I couldn't even kiss several minutes ago?"

I stood up like a skittish colt, well aware of the irony myself. "It's a bad idea anyway, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Oh no you don't." He moved to block my path with surprising agility. "We don't have to decide on anything tonight, but in the meantime I believe I still have twenty hours to prove my worth to you."

"And you've spent the last two days telling me that it's impossible."

"It's a bad idea for you, but certainly not impossible." He wavered slightly, off balance without the assistance of his cane. Instinctively I moved forward to stabilize him, and he responded by trusting his weight to my shoulder and leaning down to murmur gently in my ear. "Give me your trust, Lisa. You don't always have to be so strong: give in for tonight and tomorrow you can go back to being the loud and obnoxious Cuddy that we know and lo--hate."

I laughed quietly; suddenly it seemed like a great effort to keep my eyes open.

"That's it." He said with an odd absence of any kind of sarcastic wit as I allowed my eyelids to flutter closed. "Trust me."

Those were the last words spoken that night, and I surrendered my power to him, completely, and absolutely—but of course with the understanding that if he didn't give it up first thing in the morning I would fight tooth and nail to retrieve it: as it turned out, he never did hand it back to me, but only because he never fully accepted it in the first place.

I was leaning on him for emotional support, and likewise for him and physical support; we were very evenly matched and he never did anything to shift the balance of power. His movements were fluid and natural and infuriatingly slow as he settled his vigilant attention on me. We spent the better part of the night just teasing, and exploring, and testing the reactions of the other. It was a night of healing, and of starting anew, and I came to know him, physically and emotionally, as intimately as he knew me.


End file.
